


This Sinking

by emmbrancsxx0



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 13x23, 13x23: Let The Good Times Roll, Coda, Destiel - Freeform, I HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR THIS AND NOW.... I DO NOT WANT IT, I am in great emotional disgress, I love pain and suffering, M/M, Michael!Dean, This Is Fine, finale coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 11:26:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14693211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmbrancsxx0/pseuds/emmbrancsxx0
Summary: He always considered his vessel to be the thing tying him to this plane of existence, but it wasn't.  It had been Dean.  And now that Dean was missing from the world, Castiel felt strangely divorced from all reality.  Like he was floating.  Untethered.  As if he were fading, and might soon disappear altogether.





	This Sinking

“Look, just—,” Dean said, holding his hand up to Michael, bloody and broken but still so victorious. Castiel glanced at his angel blade on the floor feet away and wondered if was worth a shot, just to take that look of Michael’s face.

“Just give us a sec, okay? _Don’t_ go anywhere.” 

Michael was smiling again as he looked at his prize. “I’ll be here.”

Dean hummed before spinning around and grabbing Castiel by the coat sleeve. He dragged him into the hallway outside of the war room, and Castiel let him.

“Have you lost your mind?” Castiel said as soon as they rounded the corner, his sorrow at hearing how easily Dean would throw his life away transforming into aggression. “Dean, _nothing_ good will come of this. You know that.” 

“No I don’t know that,” Dean said, rounding on him when he figured Michael was out of earshot. “We made a deal.”

Castiel’s brows shot up, and he scoffed. “You really think that makes a difference to him? You’re not stupid, Dean.”

“We gotta try.”

“No. We don’t. We will find another way.”

Dean let out a frustrated sound from low in his throat, like a growl. “I don’t have time for this, Cas!” he erupted. “Sam could be dead by now!”

“And you want to join him?" 

He expected that to get a rise out of Dean. He expected Dean to shout. He wanted that, to get Dean riled up, to use that energy to fight Lucifer on their own terms, terms that didn’t involve Michael. 

But Dean deflated, and dragged his hands down his face. When they again fell to his sides, his expression was forlorn, tired. 

 _Yes_ , was his answer to Castiel’s question. _Yes_.

“I gotta try.” He took a step closer, the subdued scent of his aftershave filling Castiel’s senses. It made him think of mountain passes and smoke. “It’s _Lucifer_ , Cas. _Lucifer’s_ got my brother. He’s got Jack,” he said with some of his grit back. 

Castiel thought of them, afraid but strong until the bitter end. He shouldn’t have let Dean stop him in that gas station. He should have gone after Jack. Maybe none of this would have happened. 

“I want them back, too, but there _has_ to be another way, Dean. There has to be. Haven’t you always said we’ll figure out whatever comes together?”

Dean pressed his lips into a line, the muscles in his jaw jumping, and for a second Castiel thought he was getting through to him. He felt something rising in Dean, as if buoyed in floodwaters. He saw it in the way Dean was looking at him, eyes dragging up and down Castiel’s face, something in them shining. Castiel could almost see Dean’s soul in them, they were so bright.

And then he said again, “I don’t have a choice.”

And he believed it. Castiel closed his eyes and felt it wash over him. There was no changing Dean’s mind. 

“Listen, Cas. Before . . .” Dean paused, throat clicking as he swallowed. He turned his head, eyes cast off to the blank wall to the side of Castiel. He sighed, seeming to muster his bravado.  
  
Castiel felt it inside of Dean again, the thing he didn't dare give a name to. It was so close to the surface now.  
  
“Fuck it—.”  
  
As Dean took a deep breath, Castiel felt panic drench him. “Dean, don't,” he urged, almost begged. Not like this. It would sound too final, and if that was how Dean was going to say it, Castiel would rather not hear it at all.  
  
Dean seemed to wither. He ran his hand down his mouth. “C'mon, man. You gotta let me.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Cas.” There was frustration in Dean's voice, and annoyance. Anger, almost. _Cas_. The name was clipped, as it always was when Dean used the gruff voice that seemed to say _shut up and listen_. It was something he’d inherited from his father, and Castiel knew nothing in heaven or on Earth would keep him from saying what he wanted to say.  
  
So, begrudgingly, Castiel shut up and listened.  
  
He listened to Dean take in another inhale, collecting himself. “I need you to know that I—,” the words must have gotten stuck in his throat. He grunted and tried again. He looked terrified. “I love you.” His breath shuddered around the last word, as if he were breaking to the surface of the sea, his lungs burning from holding the air in too long. He averted his eyes to his boots.  
  
Despite the apprehension Castiel harbored before, he suddenly felt as if he were flying. At the same time, it was as if the entire universe—every atom of matter and light—pressed upon him like gravity, as if his father had created all of it to lead to this moment. All of time, all of history. It existed so that he could love Dean Winchester. It existed so that Dean could love him back.  
  
Something thick and all consuming bubbled up in his chest, and he couldn't stop it from breaking free. It ballooned inside him and felt like a breeze through his ruffled, broken wings.  
  
“I know,” he laughed. He'd always known. He'd felt Dean's longing. It was what grounded him, after all. “I love you, too.”  
  
Dean was laughing, too. A nervous but elated thing. He shrugged as his eyes met Castiel’s. “I know.”  
  
There was something else building inside of Castiel, right behind his eyes. He'd felt it before on occasion, that strange burning pressure. He'd never released it. Angels do not cry—can't cry. But it had never been this powerful before, and he wanted to cry.  
  
Dean closed the space between them, touching their foreheads together and closing his eyes. Castiel kept his open, searching Dean's features in the proximity.  
  
“Why the hell didn't we say that before?” Dean said, his voice thick and wet, his breaths hot on Castiel's cheeks. But there was still a litany in his tone. He was happy.  
  
Castiel wanted to keep that happiness. He lifted his hand and gripped Dean's shoulder tightly, pressing his fingers deep into the layers of canvas and flannel until he felt the outline of the body beneath.  
  
“I think it's because we're, as you say, a couple of dumbasses.”  
  
Dean laughed again, and this time it sounded more pained. “Yeah,” he agreed, and sniffled. “Yeah, we are.”  
  
Beneath Castiel's touch, Dean bent his arm up and placed his hand over Castiel's as best as he could at the angle. He wrapped his fingers around two of Castiel's.  
  
“I’ll come back,” he said, and at once Castiel no longer felt like he was flying. He was shot down from the sky, plunged into some abyss. He shook his head against Dean’s and told him _no no no_. It only made Dean speak more quickly. “We’ll have time, Cas. Once Sam and Jack are back safe, you hear me? All this’ll be over. We can have time.”  
  
Castiel gripped Dean’s shoulder tighter. Dean didn’t really believe what he was saying; he was just hoping for the best. “We can, Dean. We _do_. Don’t do this. Stay.”  
  
Dean's eyes fluttered open, and there was only bone-deep resolve in them. The happiness turned to a weight in Castiel's gut.  
  
“Cas, you gotta promise me something.” Castiel wanted to say no. He wanted to yell. He wanted to hit Dean. He wanted to cry.  
  
“If I don’t—If Michael . . . You gotta watch out for Sammy,” Dean whispered. “Promise me you'll watch out for Sammy.”  
  
Castiel almost told him that he couldn't. That Sam would slip out of his fingers like sand. Sam didn't need Castiel like he needed Dean. No one would do but his brother. No one would surpass Dean.  
  
But Dean knew all this already, and Castiel knew what was being asked of him. It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t an order. It was a plea.  
  
“Dean.”  
  
“Please.” A crack went through Dean's voice and Castiel felt it in his chest.  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Dean took a breath, relieved. His grip on Castiel's fingers tightened, more than a quick squeeze. He pulled Castiel's hand away from him, and Castiel let him, even though he didn't want to. Even though he wanted to hold onto him as if Dean were the only thing anchoring him to the skin of the world.  
  
“All right,” Dean muttered, more to himself than to Castiel. He lifted his forehead away and already he was much too far. When he looked up, he was blinking rapidly and his eyes were clear and impossibly green. “All right,” he repeated.  
  
And Castiel wanted to kiss him, but he didn't. Dean looked like he wanted the same, but neither did he make a move towards it. It would make it harder somehow. And Castiel knew he would regret doing it.  
  
He also knew he would regret not doing it.

“Wait here. I’m comin’ back,” Dean said like he could promise such things, a pushed smirk quirking his lips. Castiel knew it fell from his face the moment he turned away.  
  
Dean moved towards entrance to the war room. His shoulders were taught and determined, like a soldier. Like a martyr.  
  
But then, like a miracle, he turned around in the threshold. His eyes were big, drinking in every inch of Castiel. “I'm sorry things could'a been different between us.”  
  
And Castiel didn't care if they had never said _I love you_ before today, had never kissed, and never held each other like lovers do. It still wouldn't be enough. All they'd been through together, all those years—they weren't even remotely enough. A millennia wouldn't be.  
  
But they were together, in some capacity, no matter how briefly.  
  
“I'm not.”  
  
Dean gave a sad kind of smile, and his eyes fell to the floor.  
  
“See ya soon, Cas,” he said, and swept into the war room, into Michael’s waiting presence, before Castiel could respond.

He heard Michael’s voice, but not his words. It was too muffled by the concrete. He heard Dean, though, as clear as a bell. He heard him say yes. He heard Michael’s grace pass into him, saw its blinding light spill into the hall and bleach the wall. He felt it reverberate throughout him, from the soles of his shoes to his chest. It loosened the pressure inside him.

He saw the light fade. He heard the shuffling of wings.  
  
And angels do not cry, but he was the angel of tears and he finally understood why that was. He felt one slip down his cheek, and caught it, warm and wet, on his chin with the tip of his finger. And he stared at it as if he didn’t quite know what it was. 

He dropped his arm to his side and leaned against the wall.  
  
“Goodbye, Dean.”

 

///

 

The vessel from the other world that Michael had possessed was folded on the floor, brown coat pooled around it like dried blood. Castiel sat on the steps leading into the library and stared at it. He watched for any sign of Michael reclaiming it, but nothing came. He waited for Dean to return, like he said he would, but he didn’t come, either.

With every passing moment, a cold dread seeped deeper into Castiel until it made him numb. He knotted his hands together, squeezing them every so often, but couldn’t feel the pressure. It was almost a relief, this sinking.

Dean wouldn’t come back. Castiel knew that. He couldn’t feel Dean’s longing anymore. It had been washed away by a great swell.

He didn’t know what to tell Mary. He knew he shouldn’t have given her hope, but her distress made him use words like _maybe_ and _it’s possible that_ and _he’ll be okay_. That hope was quashed when Sam and Jack walked through the doors hours later, and Dean wasn’t with them. Like Castiel knew he wouldn’t be, but he’d allowed those hopeful words to stir him, too. 

Prayer never did seem to work for him. He didn’t know why it would start now. He hadn’t even known to whom he’d been praying. Maybe Michael. Maybe Dean.

He wondered, now, if could Dean feel his longing, too.

Sam had blood on his face. Jack had red on his shirt. Castiel went up to him and wrapped Jack in his arms, the younger man collapsing into him and trusting Castiel to hold him upright. Jack was solid and safe and home. Castiel’s eyes were skewed closed, but when he opened them, he saw Mary holding Sam in the same manner. 

Sam’s cheeks were blotchy. Jack’s breaths were uneven. Castiel let him cry into his chest, and Mary pressed her hand to the crown of Sam’s head and pulled him against her shoulder. He thought he might drown in all the tears.

It was later, after everyone had settled into sleep and the light from the feeble lamps on the tables did nothing to cut through the night, when Sam found Castiel again. He’d resumed his spot on the stairs, his eyes still half on the bunker’s door. Still half expecting Dean to make good on his promise. 

Because it was Dean. If anyone could take back control from an archangel, it was Dean Winchester. Or perhaps that was another useless prayer.

Sam didn’t bother to sit down. He didn’t bother waiting for impossible things. He strode past Castiel, walking in that way he did when he was determined. Every stride seemed to eat the ground beneath him, like the earth was something inconsequential. It rotated only to move him along. “Come with me,” he demanded, not looking back.

Castiel sighed heavily, shoulders slumping. “Sam—.” 

“Cas.” He spun around, pausing only briefly. Castiel forced himself to his feet and followed Sam out of the bunker, into the Impala. Wordlessly, Sam started the engine and began driving. The dirt road made the car jolt and tremble in all the familiar ways, the ways that meant they were close to home, but it felt different now—foreign. Castiel was glad when they reached the stretch of smooth, paved road cutting through the farmland like a river. 

But even that seemed like uncharted territory, those roads he knew so well. Everything felt slightly off center.

He couldn't stop looking at his hands.  They didn't feel like they were his own—and they weren't, he supposed.  Not really.  But it had been years since he'd considered them as anything else. 

He spread his fingers, but couldn't feel the stretching skin between them.  He balled his hands into fists, but the only sensation he elicited was a distant numbness—not the tension of sinew around red and white knuckles, not dull nails digging into soft flesh.  Nothing. 

It had begun when Dean . . . When he left.

Castiel wondered if this is what shock felt like, but he knew it was more than that.  He knew this was more than temporary. 

He always considered his vessel to be the thing tying him to this plane of existence, but it wasn't.  It had been Dean.  And now that Dean was missing from the world, Castiel felt strangely divorced from all reality.  Like he was floating.  Untethered.  As if he were fading, and might soon disappear altogether. 

Dean was gone.  Castiel couldn't find his grip on the world without him near. 

It took him a moment to realize Sam was speaking. 

“He didn't say anything?  To you, I mean.  Before . . . Before he said yes?” 

His words were being drowned out by the revving of the Impala's engine.  Dean should have been behind the wheel.  He wasn't.  Sam was, the occasional headlights of oncoming traffic setting his face aglow before passing back into darkness.  But the car still smelled like cracked vinyl, gasoline, and Dean’s aftershave. Castiel didn't even know what they were driving towards.

Sam lifted one hand from the steering wheel to shakily run it through his hair.  His other was white-knuckling the cross-stitched leather.  He was trying so hard to keep in control. “I mean, it’s just—He wouldn't have done this if we couldn't find a way to save him, right?”

Castiel would have laughed if he could feel anything at all.  Sam knew his brother better than anyone.  He knew Dean wouldn't have cared about saving himself.  He was too concerned with everyone else.

He looked down at his hands again, palms up.  He recalled the feeling of Dean's soul in his grasp.  He'd saved Dean once.  He couldn't this time.

But mountains would crumble before Sam Winchester believed his brother could ever truly leave him alone in the world.  And mountains would move to ensure he was right.

“He must have said—.” 

“He didn't say anything,” Castiel sighed tiredly.  He couldn't listen to it anymore, Sam's stubborn determination.  “Nothing that could help us.”

And then Castiel thought of what Dean did say. How happy it had made him, how sad. He didn't know such emotions could coincide at the same moment, and he didn’t know they could feel identical.  Now, he only felt grief, and he wished Dean hadn't said anything, after all.

Sam glanced away from the road to shoot him a pitying look.  It made Castiel droop and turn his sight out the window to his side. The passing planes of Kansas went by as if on a film reel.

“But he told you?” Sam said, his voice softer than before. Castiel had no idea how Sam knew.  “I mean, he finally said it?”

That distant sensation washed over him again, and he imagined he were flickering in and out of existence, and it was only a matter of time until his light was snuffed out completely.

He wondered where he'd go.  Heaven?  The empty?  Maybe nowhere at all.

“Yes, Sam,” he said.  “He told me.” 

“And you,” he heard Sam swallow into a pause, like Castiel’s answer was the worst possible thing he could have said, “you told him?” 

Castiel didn't answer.  He wasn't certain what Sam heard in his silence.

“Listen, man, we're gonna get him back, okay?” Sam said at once, the fierce determination back in his tone.  He sounded so much like Dean, full of so many promises that no man could keep no matter how much they prayed. No man, perhaps not even a Winchester. “And then you guys can work it out—or not.  I dunno.  Not my place.  But we start by finding him and bringing him home.”

“Sam—,” he began, about to give a harsh truth that Sam already knew.

“No, dammit!” Sam suddenly yelled, his voice deep and full of fury.  He calmed himself, and slapped the steering wheel once with his open palm.  He took a deep breath, getting his fears in check.  “No.  We're getting him back.  We're not giving up on him, all right?” He wagged his finger like a schoolteacher in one of those old movies Dean had made Castiel watch.  “He never gave up on us.”

Castiel didn't know how to break it to him that there was nothing left to give up on.  Sam wouldn't accept it if he tried.  That was the way Sam loved: both selflessly and selfishly at once.  It was a love that both gave and took.  Dean had only the selfless kind of love, the kind that gave everything he ever had.

Castiel wondered how he would have loved, if he'd ever really gotten the chance to find out.

Just as the drive began to feel oppressively like a funeral procession, they pulled into the parking lot of an old church.

Sam killed the engine and turned his body towards Castiel, staring at him hard. His voice gave away his desperation now, his pain. “Cas, tell me your with me.”

And yes, Castiel was with him.  He'd made a promise, too.

 _Watch out for Sammy_ , Dean had said.  He'd entrusted Castiel with that, the thing most precious to him in the world. More precious than his life.

_Watch out for Sammy._

When Castiel answered, he was speaking to Dean, like a prayer.  “Of course.” 

But Dean couldn't hear him.  Dean was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this work, please consider supporting me on [Buy Me a Coffee](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/emmbrancs) or be the first to read my fics and receive exclusive bonuses with [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/emmbrancs). Thanks so much for reading!


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